Been Gone A While

Sadly, I have been away from the blog for a while. I don't really want to go into detail because that's not what this blog is about. Let's just honestly say that my very self-centered attempt at putting God in time out didn't work nearly as well as it does with my kids. He came back with a smack down that I'm still trying to recover from. This was not my first attempt in doing this hence, the smack down. So needless to say, I didn't think my heart was in the right place to post anything. I hope you'll forgive me.

Anyway, I wanted to catch you up on the Ruth study that we're doing, she has such a story to tell!! We're now 2 chapters in and loving it!!! Ruth is such an amazing woman for ALL of us regardless of our age and stage of life. She is for EVERY woman whether you are married with children, no children or single.

Last week we incorporated the movie Step Mom with Susan Sarandan and Julia Roberts into our opener. It was my attempt at bringing you a modern day example of Ruth and Naomi and I really hoped it helped you as much as it helped me. If you haven't seen this movie, you need to rent it at some point during the course of this study. I think you'll be surprised at the resemblance in characters be it ever so loose a resemblance.

We talked about the importance of having "gracious and bold speech" in hard situations that we sometimes find ourselves in. We coupled this along with the idea of weeping forward, such an amazing concept that doesn't lend itself to just one chapter- it appears again later!

Our speech....

It was gracious and bold speech on Ruth's part that kept her with Naomi on the path from Moab back to Bethlehem. Naomi tried and tried to get her to go back to Moab but Ruth just wouldn't budge regardless of what Naomi said and the tears that were shed. She finally, with gracious speech told her "Enough already!!! I'm sorry you're bitter but that's not going to keep me from caring for you and staying with you until the very end!" (These are totally my words...) It's in this instance, that Ruth looked Bitter (this is what Naomi willingly changed her name to) in the eyes and loved her despite the unlovable spirit that she exuded from every pore of her body. This is what gracious and bold speech will do for ya...it will begin to crack the bitterest of people. And then the tears will flow......

Weep and pick a direction....

Weeping is just not something that women do well at all. Often times it renders us nothing more than a heap on the couch or in a dark corner unable to do anything else but eat chocolate (or ice cream in my case) and think about the bad in the situation. "Crying and walking in a forward motion" as Kelly puts it would never cross our minds while in this state. But the more that we study and learn about Ruth and her circumstance, we learn that it is possible and is healing for so many different areas of our lives.

So the bottom line is: the next time you weep you have a choice; are you going to weep forward or weep going backward. When you weep forward with bold and gracious speech as Ruth and Naomi did, you realize that some situations require tears but they don't have to keep you from experiencing the opportunity which lies ahead for you. When you weep going backward as Orpah (she was easily convinced to go back to Moab and end her journey with Ruth and Naomi) did, you realize that some situations require tears but you would rather cry over what may be lost and allow that to keep you in the place where you currently are thus shying away from any opportunities that may come your way. Make sense?

Read Ruth chapter 1 for yourself it will help you to make sense of it all. There was so much discussed and learned from this first week that I couldn't put it all in this one post!